


Through Root And Vein

by CourierNinetyTwo



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Countess!Widowmaker, F/F, witch!mercy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 17:01:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12586520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CourierNinetyTwo/pseuds/CourierNinetyTwo
Summary: The Countess has sought vengeance since her transformation into a vampire, but what the Witch offers is a salve for a hungry heart.





	Through Root And Vein

The Witch was close.

Amélie had no doubt, not with the scent of brimstone cutting through the crisp night air, notes of ash and silver following close behind. A hint of blood lingered as well, its iron thread invading her senses with every step towards the distant, mist-cursed castle. Hunger stirred in her gut, the feral cry of the beast locked beneath cold flesh, taking refuge in the hollow where the soul of a woman once lay. Nothing more than Amélie's title remained: she was only the _Countess_ now, spoken of like a figure of legend.

And the one who caused it was hiding behind ancient stone walls.

From her initial perch, there had been little to see; the fog was impenetrable by scope or spyglass, and sunlight was hours away yet. With rifle in hand, Amélie cut a careful path through the forest, trusting scent over sight. Everyone knew how easily a witch could trick one's eyes, even those that peered through the dark with ease.

Her steps were silent, a whisper over leaf and branch, but eventually there was no choice but to push forward into the haze surrounding the castle. Amélie kept her jaw locked, lips in a tight line; she no longer possessed the need to breathe, but the instinct reasserted itself in times of stress, and she didn't want a drop of this fog entering her lungs, withered or otherwise.

Everything smelled of metal and loam, nature and all that perverted it. Now that she was surrounded by the mist, Amélie couldn't tell one direction from the next, and the only choice was to keep walking forward. Eventually she would reach cold stone, and could trace the fortifications of the castle towards its gate.

Until something slipped tight around her ankle and pulled.

Amélie spat a curse as she hit the ground, knocked flat on her stomach. The barrel of her rifle was a hard curve against her cheek, but as she made to sit up, the distant glimpse of teeth made Amélie freeze.

They were carved and lay in a careful curve, the trap just inches from her face. If she hadn't been tripped, it surely would have snapped around her feet a moment later, cutting through boot and bone. This low to the earth, Amélie could now see dozens of such contraptions, each wicked invention meant to hamstring and torment any would-be intruders

Turning slowly over onto her back, Amélie brushed the dirt from her jacket and shifted forward to find what sort of snare had seized her. The rope was a simple enough braid, but when she followed its length up a nearby tree, a pair of narrow yellow eyes stared back down. Blackened flesh framed scales with a lantern's glow, warm hues of red meeting at forge-bright gold in the center of her captor's chest.

"Dragon's blood." Amélie uttered under her breath, lost to disbelief. "Has the Witch cursed you as well?"

"Far from it." An accent overlaid the other woman's words, but each syllable was crisp and sharp, like thorns piercing ice. "Consider yourself summoned to her presence."

She raised a brow; threats she had expected, but not an invitation. "I am an eager guest."

"Is that so?" The dragon sat up from her perch, one leg crossing over the other. Bringing dark claws to bear, fire bloomed from the center of that same hand. "Then let the earth take you."

Amélie opened her mouth to ask what that meant, only for a circle of flame to surround her. It burned hot enough to melt the ground into slag, collapsing under its own weight, and she was falling into a charnel pit, subsumed into the darkness before being whisked away elsewhere.

\--

Consciousness returned in starved fragments, whittled thin by a gnawing deep in Amélie's gut.

It was little surprise that her body was stiff, as going without blood meant a slow deterioration to a true corpse, but it wasn't until willing both eyes open that Amélie realized she was bound to a chair. No mere seat either, from how it resisted her initial burst of strength, the surface against her back smooth but wholly unyielding. Her bonds were unnatural, glowing gold like light captured in a prism, refracted into chains.

"Witch!" Amélie snarled the word like a curse, nearly wrenching her shoulder from its socket to break free until the restraints snapped taut and yanked her back. "You leave me helpless, and still will not face me?"

"You are far from helpless, Countess Guillard." The voice carried from the shadows until the lips speaking them were made flesh, the Witch herself emerging with slow steps. "Many of my servants have perished with one of your bullets between their eyes."

"I offered them mercy where you did not." Amélie bared her teeth, only to sputter in rage when the Witch's gloved hand wrapped tight around her throat.

Leather-clad fingers walked up the underside of her chin before a thumb swept across her lips. "Is that what you told yourself when you drained their bodies dry afterwards?"

"I had no choice." She protested, making another irritated noise as the Witch's fingers toyed with her fangs, exposed by hunger pressing past the point of control. "Better to drink from corpses than the living."

"I have watched, Amélie." The absence of title was overtly familiar, and her stomach roiled as the Witch took a step back, taking that heated touch with her. "You fall on them like a wolf, tearing through any flesh in your way to feed."

"Because of you!" The distant spectre of guilt lingered in the back of Amélie's mind, but vengeance was what had carried her here. Defeating the Witch was impossible if she perished from hunger. "I begged for your help. I...begged you to cure me."

Sympathy flourished past the Witch's cold expression, a shine in alchemical blue eyes. "I never had a cure, Amélie."

"That's not true." She knew it wasn't, not after seeing the dead rise under those cursed hands. "You have resurrected countless of the fallen."

"They still possessed their souls." The Witch said simply, despite the concern creasing her brow. "By the time you reached me, the vampire's bite had claimed yours."

"But you could have tried--" Amélie began, only to be cut off with a razor-sharp glare.

"No. Not after Gabriel." Her sigh held the weight of centuries, a burden that could never be sloughed away. "Be grateful you merely hunger for blood. Your victims may survive the taking, if you wish it."

Amélie swallowed hard, remembering the first time she met the Reaper, the abomination the Witch called by name. They had gotten along well, actually, as she had no soul for him to devour, but he never expressed a desire to be cured, or even released from his eternal torment. All that fueled him was vengeance, to slay the man who had put him in such a wretched state before the Witch brought Gabriel back from the edge of the grave.

"I am grateful for nothing." Amélie hissed. "You do not understand how this plagues me. Every night I wake, and a monster rises with it. I cannot slake its thirst."

The Witch hummed in lieu of a reply, unclasping the golden bracelets around one wrist before peeling away the glove underneath. Amélie's attention was immediately drawn to pale flesh, the cartography of veins so close to the surface. It took every last granule of self-control not to thrash against her bonds again, to bury her fangs past the breaking point of skin, and drink deep.

"Like now?" The question wasn't mocking, merely _knowing_ , but enough for Amélie to realize the exposure had been purposeful.

"Do not toy with me." Turning her face away, Amélie squeezed her eyes shut. Would that she could dampen her other senses as well; the scent of blood eager to be freed, the steady beat of the Witch's heart hammering inside her skull. "Have I not suffered enough?"

"Toying with you implies I have no intent of satisfying your needs." Even with her eyes closed, she knew the Witch had stepped close again, her heels a light scrape on stone, skirt fluttering with leather's creak in echo. "I cannot cure you, Amélie, but I can offer a moment's relief."

"Bribing me will not work." Amélie insisted, despite the animal pacing through her thoughts, searching for a chance to strike, to bleed. "You deserve to die for all you have done."

"Would you rather I drove a stake through your heart, then?" The brim of the Witch's hat brushed against the top of Amélie's hair, lips a mere inch from one ear. "Those were my choices, Amélie. To kill you or to let you go."

"I want my old life back. My husband..." Amélie's jaw tightened until tension split its way up her entire skull. "The last thing he saw before he died was a monster."

"I know." Bare fingertips skirted her cheek, intending to soothe, but the warmth pervading that touch was answered by a dire ache. "They hunt you too, do they not? An alchemist put a bounty out for your head."

"Because they fear me. They will not even look at me, see who I was." Only the fangs mattered, only the beast. "God forgive me, I'm so _hungry_."

"God is elsewhere. While I have no salvation, but I do have this." A hand pressed against the back of Amélie's head, bringing it forward, and her eyes snapped open. "Drink."

Flesh was made offering below the clasp of the Witch's cloak, her corset cut low enough to bare the curve of her breasts, right above the rhythm of that incessantly beating heart. Amélie knew her face would have reddened if her body wasn't so cold and empty, and it was only by clutching the arm of the chair tight enough to crack it that she managed to ask, "Will this bind me to you?"

"Only if you wish it." The Witch's fingers stroked slowly up and down her nape, a subtle and almost undeniable encouragement. "But this is not a bargain, only a gift."

She couldn't hold back. So little of her _wanted_ to, and it was that realization that Amélie refused to think through before she bit down. Her fangs pierced through the top of one breast, and the Witch's gasp of pain was short but genuine. Nonetheless, the hand at the back of her head only maintained a loose grip, and when the first drop of blood fell onto Amélie's tongue, a deep growl rumbled in her throat.

It was far from the horrifying ecstasy of her first feed, nothing like the vulture-like necessity of cradling the dead and taking until they had nothing left. The Witch's blood was mercifully hot, a salve that warmed its way down her throat and spread to every limb until it settled in the pit of her stomach with the intoxication of wine. While twin trickles of blood flowed with ease beneath her fangs, Amélie occasionally encouraged more with the pressure of her tongue, slow licks that betrayed a building desire for more.

"Isn't that better?" The Witch whispered, and now Amélie did blush, all too aware she had accepted the other woman's gift with the grace of a salivating dog. "You're warm to the touch now."

She took that as a signal to withdraw, easing her fangs away with care. Blood welled up to fill their absence, and Amélie stared as it began to drip down between the Witch's breasts, biting her tongue against the urge to lick crimson paths clean.

"I've never had a vampire bite me before." A rich laugh spilled from the Witch's lips, made her bosom heave right in front of Amélie's face. "Is it supposed to feel good?"

"I..." That made Amélie hesitate, eyes averting away from the source of her temptation. "I don't know."

The dead didn't feel, after all, and Gerard had screamed until she drained him dry.

"Now you look the martyr again." The Witch drew her fingertips down Amélie's arm, and the restraint there vanished. Each glowing bond followed suit, snuffed out like a candle. "Take the night's rest here."

"And then what?" Pursuing revenge now would be bittersweet at best, but she had no other cause to claim, no purpose except to hunt.

The Witch shrugged. "Seek your cure elsewhere."

"There is none, is there?" Amélie accused, and the truth tasted like ash. "Nothing but the stake or the sun."

A slow nod followed. "Many would kill for eternal life, Amélie. Surely you can find some way to spend it that pleases you."

"And what would please _you_?" She dared to ask; there was no mistaking blown pupils, lust's snare edging out the color in the Witch's eyes.

"We made no trade." The Witch smiled, then looked down to wipe away the blood from her skin. "Does it matter?"

"You gave me a gift despite knowing my intentions." Amélie knew she could have starved locked in this seat, disintegrated into nothing. "I do not like debts."

"Then come with me to bed." The suggestion was made lightly, despite all it implied. "Regardless, we only have until the sun rises."

The thought of sharing her body with someone else was almost foreign after so many years, for the risk of losing control had been far too great. Yet she was sated now, and the Witch would be warm and willing. Lost in thought, Amélie only came to her senses when she realized the Witch was gone, presumably to her private chambers.

Curiosity won the bet against lust for the time being, and Amélie started to wander the castle proper, fascinated by the runes engraved in countless floors, the alchemical burns covered by paintings and rearranged shelves. She wasn't quite sure what she was looking for, only that the opportunity to find out more about the woman that had driven her half to madness seemed too precious to cast away.

Yet by the time the moon was high, a silver beacon just above the fogged windows, Amélie tracked the Witch's scent down a maze of halls towards a closed door. It was unlocked, but she turned the latch with as much silence as she could summon before stepping inside.

There were more books here, hundreds beyond count, but the bed in the center was lavish and draped in white. Here the mist had no sway, and moonlight cast the Witch in silver from where she was stretched out naked atop the sheets. Her eyes were closed, but the rhythm of her breath was still too quick for slumber to have taken hold.

True to Amélie's suspicion, the Witch's eyes opened as she approached, and the smile that curved her lips was nothing short of sinful. "I thought I might have failed to capture your interest."

"Have you ever failed at capturing anyone?" Amélie asked, leaning against one of the bedposts.

She shrugged. "Not as of yet."

Her coat and gauntlets were easily stripped aside, but after that, Amélie paused, aware her every movement was being memorized by deep blue eyes. "I do not wish to be touched. Are we in accord?"

"What a trial, when either answer can be taken as selfish." Still, the desire possessing the Witch's gaze lost none of its glimmer. "I will keep my hands at bay."

That made things more simple, at least in one respect. Amélie wasn't entirely sure if her body even possessed such capabilities anymore, and her pride had been bruised enough for one evening.

Silk slid beneath her knees as she climbed onto the bed, looming over the Witch like a predator. Once the other woman was eclipsed by her shadow, Amélie leaned down for a kiss, and found lips that tasted like fire. The heat was everywhere, in the moan muffled against her mouth, in the shoulders she grasped and pinned down against the pillows. She kissed down one flushed cheek to the pulse in the Witch's throat, and heard her breath catch.

"Do you want to bite me again?" There was nothing fair about that question, not when it ended on a stilted gasp as Amélie's hands cupped both breasts, inches from the mark she had already made.

"Of course I do." She could be a beast in the open here, at least. "But I might not be able to stop."

"That _is_ why I had you tied the first time." The Witch admitted, stomach tensing tight as a drum under Amélie's fingertips as they caressed lower and lower. "But if I trusted you to..."

"Do not trust me." Amélie growled through grit teeth, dragging her mouth away from the Witch's neck to nip and suck along her collarbone instead. "You will not get what you want by being a distraction."

Her nails scratched red lines up the inside of one thigh, and she cherished the whimper that followed, chasing the sound until blonde curls parted under pressure and revealed the slick folds beneath. Amélie bit her lip to hold back a moan; she knew it had likely been a long time for the Witch as well, that one of the costs of being in power was never being permitted vulnerability, but there was still something satisfying about the arousal that slicked her fingers.

Yet it paled next to the satisfaction of the Witch's moan when she drew a slow circle around her clit, hips jerking forward in open invitation. Amélie scraped her fangs down the swell of the Witch's breast, then licked a stripe across the mark they had left before. Even the faint tang of blood was enough to urge her on, a pair of fingertips toying just outside the Witch's entrance before she plunged them both forward in one slow, deep thrust.

"Amélie..." To hear her name gasped, not the title, not what everyone whispered in fear, was its own sort of bliss.

It may have been years, but she knew this rhythm -- when to quicken and when to still, when to curl her fingers and urge the Witch to tighten around her -- and savored all the notes it produced in turn, cries that echoed up to the rafters, rapid breaths and broken syllables. Amélie centered her attention on the Witch's clit, swollen and wet, and demanded another kiss before the telltale pulses of orgasm rippled around her fingers.

The tips of her fangs nicked the Witch's lower lip, and the renewed taste of blood wrenched a sound from Amélie's own throat. She sucked at the pinprick marks until the Witch was spent underneath her, knuckles gone white from clutching at the pillows. For a moment, Amélie settled her weight against the other woman, clinging to the heat rolling off of her in waves. Only when the Witch started to stir again did she withdraw her hand, licking the last taste of iron from her lips.

"I hope my gift was to your liking." Amélie whispered.

"Well worth a blood price." The Witch smiled, then stretched across the sheets like a cat. "Now sleep, Amélie."

She raised a brow. "The sun is what bids me to rest."

"It will be here soon enough." Her words held nothing but confidence, despite the moonlight still pouring through the window. "Now _sleep_."

Amélie's eyes fell closed like weights dropped upon them, and in her last seconds of consciousness, she realized the Witch's command had been a spell.

\--

After sundown, Amélie awoke in a nest of broken wood and shredded cloth.

Confusion reigned as she looked around the mess of the bedroom, which could scarcely be called a room at all. The walls were crumbling, merely a hollow skeleton held together by iron frames and bolts. There was no sign of the Witch's extensive library, nor of any experiments, but Amélie found her clothes and rifle arranged in a neat pile atop a fallen column of stone.

Beside them was a note, wrapped around a vial.

She didn't have to break the seal to know what was within. The Witch's blood had a strong enough scent to carry through the crystal, and the parchment attached made its purpose clear: _for the trip home, my Countess._

"The castle was an illusion?" Amélie almost had to laugh. "What monster am I compared to your cleverness?"

Still, she could taste the Witch on the back of her tongue. It was the first time regret didn't carry in blood's wake, and Amélie was grateful for that one small mercy.

\--


End file.
